Designing for Business Impact: A Transformation Journey at Uber
Talk
Designing for Business Impact: A Transformation Journey at Uber
Continuous Design
UXDX USA 2025
In this talk, Joann Wu, VP Global Head of Product Design, will share insights from her transformative journey at Uber, where design plays a critical role in driving business impact. She will discuss how her team shifted from a siloed design function to one deeply integrated with business goals, emphasizing the importance of aligning design with strategy to create user-centered products that drive business results. This session will dive into the three levels of transformation—designing for business, elevating product quality, and fostering a customer-centric culture.
Key learnings:
- Empowering the design function to truly understand designing for business
- Shifting the company’s focus from metrics to a more user experience-focused approach
- Real-world applications of a customer-obsessed culture at Uber

Joann Wu, Vice President, Global Head of Design,Uber